Good dog play can be a lovely thing. It can also be confusing, misinterpreted, and at worst shift rapidly to serious predation, defense, or offensive.
How do you know which is which?
Sometimes you can easily see it is all good, like here the Great Dane and the Frenchie were in basic class together. They are mismatched by size but perfectly matched in their play style.
When you are not sure, you need to read your dog’s signals.
In this video puppy Poppy is desperate to play with the older dog. The older dog is giving great signals to Poppy indicating that she is not interested in puppy play. Poppy adjusted her play to mirror the older dog. Yay Poppy!
If your gut tells you there is something wrong – listen to it. You will call dogs out of play and give them huge rewards so their association with the play is always good!!
If things were indeed getting too intense, you have saved the day so your dog can happily play another day without a negative association. And if you were overly cautious, you can always send them back in if you were wrong.
To see the full video of Pax’e and Ruby playing see lisa3dogstraining on instagram
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